The End of the Road
by temporary relief
Summary: Do you know what's worth fighting for, when it's not worth dying for? He just wanted the pain to go away. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: Don't own them. Wish I did. But I don't. **

**Notes: This is really dark, but I didn't consider it dark enough to be M. So it's T. This isn't a parody. Weird, I know. But it's different than most stories. It's from the bad guy's POV. The song is 21 Guns by Green Day, and I also got the title from that song. Like always, enjoy.**

**WARNING! THIS IS EXTREMELY DARK!!!! I'M NOT KIDDING! DO NOT READ IF DARK IS NOT YOUR STYLE!**

**Thanks to Nik Nak 17 for reading, giving me confidence, and being an awesome person for putting up with me. **

**The End of the Road**

_Do you know what's worth fighting for, when it's not worth dying for? Does it take your breath away, and you feel yourself suffocating?_

He didn't mean to do it. He never meant to hurt her. He loved her. He told himself over and over that he did love her. Of course, he did. That's why he did it. That's why he did everything. For her. She was his life, his everything.

Bethany lay there in his arms, motionless. Her days of motion and emotion were done with. He had made sure of it. And now he couldn't not see her. Her smile that lingered, her eyes that were still open, revealing their rusty coloring, and her ruby red lips that had not faded yet. Her skin was still warm, a small sentiment to the warmth of her personality.

He traced his fingers over her cheek, letting his own tears fall over her. They fell in clusters, trailing down her face. His chest heaved up and down as he struggled to breathe after realizing this loss. He killed her. _He killed her_. He lost all sense of control, and he took her life. He took his love's life.

He said her name over and over again. The sound of it calmed him down. Brought him back his sanity. What was left of it anyway. He knew that she didn't blame him. She couldn't blame him. He told her he loved her. He was just protecting her.

She couldn't go to the cops. He wouldn't let her! She would've ruined _everything_ he worked for. After he had forgiven her and everything. That man she thought she would've seen on the side. That whore, he thought. How dare she! He gave her everything she ever wanted, and she was seeing someone on the side.

Beth begged him to let her talk. She said it was her brother, and he was staying with her while his apartment was getting fumigated. But he _knew_ she was lying. She had to be. Because if not, he was wrong, and he couldn't be.

He never wanted to kill her. He was just so _angry_. And when she had the nerve to come back to him, he snapped. He couldn't resist the urge any longer and shook her. And then she stopped moving.

And she hadn't started moving yet.

He had to accept that he had done this. It was by his hand that Beth died. It was no one else's fault. It was his. If he weren't alive, she would be.

_Lay down your arms. Give up the fight. _

A bullet and a gun sat on the table in front of him. But he forgot them. He couldn't see past her golden hair and her eyes that lacked luster. And her lingering perfume that kissed her skin and permeated through the air to his face. He cried even harder into her lifeless shoulder.

He had murdered someone so perfect that he couldn't come up with any more excuses. He loved her. He knew it, but he was going in circles. He couldn't do this. He couldn't keep tainting the memory of her. The one woman he ever loved. The only woman he ever killed.

He laid her body softly on the couch behind them, positioning her carefully. It haunted him, how peaceful she looked in death. Except her eyes. Her eyes terrified him. They stared blankly at him. They asked him why he did it. Why he would kill her. Why she was dead.

It burned to look at them, so he closed them quickly, desperately hoping that this guilt would stop playing at him. That he could be at peace from her burning eyes. The eyes that burrowed into his soul and made him want to be sick. Sick from what he had done.

In fact, he _was _going to be sick. He didn't make it to his bathroom. About half way there, he was bent over, wishing to God that this would stop. That he wouldn't be feeling this way. He knew he had to clean this up, but now he had to deal with the mess he made in his living room.

Wiping off his mouth, he stood up and returned to the room. Beth looked so careless on that couch, her arm hanging off the couch, limp. Her spirit seemed to linger. He could see her standing apart from her body. She looked sad.

"Why'd ya do it, Pete?" Her spirit asked him. He couldn't stop the tears from welling up in his eyes as he slid down against the coffee table.

Pete wiped his nose of what accumulated there before looking over at her. "I didn't mean to. I-I just lo-lost control." His hands were shaking, and he dug his head into his knees.

The specter watched him, leaning over the couch. Her arms were folded over her chest. "You just lost control? You just lost CONTROL?!? You killed me!" She phased through the sofa and knelt before him, glaring.

"Y-You said he... he was your br-r-other." He started to rock back and forth, cradling himself. "You li-ied."

The phantom glowed with rage. "I lied? You think that _I_ lied? I told you that he was my brother, but you were always jealous of me. I didn't date anyone else, but you thought that any guy who looked at me twice was screwing me!" She paused before she could find the words to continue. "I loved you, Pete. I did, but look at what you did!"

He didn't stir.

"LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID!!" She bellowed through the apartment. His ears hurt, and tears fell unrestrained from his eyes, staining his clothes. He couldn't see anymore. He just wanted the pain to go away. Pain that she kept bringing him.

Pete forced himself to dry his eyes and look up.

The color had gone from Beth's body. Her golden hair looked brown, and her eyes steeled themselves against his gaze. Her fingers looked purple as the warmth had left her, and the rest of her skin looked so pale that it made him sick again.

He cleaned himself off again as the ghost turned to him.

"How could you do it, Pete?" She asked again. This time softly. He choked back a sob and looked down at the ground. "How can you live with this?" He shook his head. He didn't want to live with this. He wanted this to end.

"I have to... uh… c-call the police. I-I h-have to m-make it right," he started sobbing as he said this.

She looked at the gun on the table behind him. "You wanna make it right?" He nodded fervently through the waterfall of tears pouring from his eyes. "I know how you can make it right." He missed a glee behind the words she said, that sly rhetoric she was using against him.

"H-ho-how?" He coughed.

Looking at him in the eyes, she said, "Get a pen and paper." He didn't even think but got up and searched his apartment until he found what he was looking for. He sat back down with them.

"Wh-What do yawant me ta do?" He slurred together, the tears swelling in his mouth.

"Say good-bye to everyone," she whispered coldly. He didn't stop to think of what she was planning. He just wrote down what he was feeling. How he loved his family. His pen shook as he wrote what horrors he did. And then he signed his name.

He set it down on the table and looked back up at the nightmare of his choice. "Take the gun and the bullet." Obediently, he picked them up, loading the empty magazine with the one bullet. It would only take one bullet. There was no need to waste time. He just had to pick it up and shoot himself.

But he didn't want to.

He wanted this to be over. He didn't want to feel this pain any longer, but he wanted to live. He wanted things to be right. But something told him that this wasn't it. There was another way. Somehow.

"What're you doin', Pete?"

He faltered.

"I-I c-can't do it, Beth." The tears fell again from his eyes. He tried to wipe them, but there were too many. He lowered the gun.

He couldn't do it.

"Pete, I thought you wanted the pain to be gone!"

"I-I do, b-but this can't be it."

"Don't you see the pain you've caused everyone? Don't you see that it's not _fair_ that you should live when I died? Don't you see this?!!" She yelled at him again.

"I-I don't wanna live with this."

"Then don't. Pull the trigger. It'll all be over. The pain will be gone."

He lifted his hand again, her rhetoric persuading him.

"Beth, I l-lo-loved you."

His hand faltered.

"Do it, Pete. Make it go away."

"I love you."

"I know."

He fingered the trigger and thought no more.

Minutes later his door was forced open, cops came pouring into his apartment. The gun was taken from his hand, and the note was read. His last words would never be heard by the living.

Hours after this, two men entered the apartment. One, a young homicide detective with bright blue eyes, and the other was an aged crime scene investigator who had seen too many of these scenes. The two stood in silence before coming any closer to the fallen.

"Mac," the first said finally.

"I know, Don. I know."

Mac snapped gloves on his hands as he read the suicide note, feeling a familiar grief. He knew that there was a story between the young man and woman that could never be told. Some story that Death would keep forever.

**A/N: Well, I told you it was dark. Please review. I don't know if I can write dark stories well or not. Have a great day though :D**


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